


I Don't Hate You

by Clarice Chiara Sorcha (claricechiarasorcha)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Emotionally Constipated Morons, General Hux Is Not A Nice Person, Kylo Ren Has Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 22:49:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5946223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claricechiarasorcha/pseuds/Clarice%20Chiara%20Sorcha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Another shiver moves through him, and it is not just from the chill of the night air. Hux is still staring at the sky. On his first night in the palace, he had memorised the constellations as seen from the capital. They were not familiar then, and they are not familiar now. They never will be.</i>
</p>
<p>Even with a knight to his right hand, the Emperor must sit his throne alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Hate You

**Author's Note:**

> WHY AM I STILL DOING THIS.
> 
> This is angst, by the way. I don't know what happened. It was supposed to be _filth_. ffs. Although I kind of blame @[brodinsons](http://brodinsons.tumblr.com) because she's always on hand to whisper little ideas into my ear. Goddammit. 
> 
> I also had [this Kyla la Grange song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag_V1uwUno4) stuck in my head while plotting this story out. It might explain a few things. SIGH.

Standing upon the balcony, gloved hands upon the perfect carven stone of the balustrade, the emperor is alone. The gardens arch away below him in a perfect landscape of balance and order. What little noise he can hear is muted: the song of insects, water whispering through the fountains, and the vague cries and flutterings of night creatures about their hunt. Only those who are prey remain silent. It is little else but the natural order of things. But the light will draw them out, again. Or hunger, or thirst. They cannot stay hidden forever.

Raising his eyes to the skyscape above, Hux allows himself a faint moment of gratitude. Even with the light pollution of the city, the stars make a fine sprinkling across the purple-pink canvas. He still feels little kinship with these stars. While his own homeworld had suffered from constant rains, meaning there could be little in the way of genuine star-gazing, he had learned from holos and simulations. Those patterns remain emblazoned on his mind, as familiar as the sprays of freckles upon his own pale skin.

Hux still remembers the glory of the first time he had broken atmo. Just a child, accompanying his father to one of the orbiting stations. He’d promised to be on his best behaviour. But the moment that they moved into low orbit, Hux had freed himself from the restraint harness and run for the windows, hands and nose pressed against the transparisteel. His behind had ached for days, following the hiding he received for insubordination. But even at five years of age, Hux had known it was worth it. He knew his place in the universe, and it was not planetside and gravity-bound.

And yet here he stands.

The near-silence of footsteps behind him does not make him turn. There is no fear in this. Even had he not recognised them by sound alone, Hux had felt his approach: a low hum that resonates somewhere low in his chest, hot and cold both. It is a queer feeling, one he had never thought he would become accustomed to. And he hasn’t. But it’s as calming as it is disturbing – as is indeed the very presence it heralds.

Long arms come about him: thankfully clean, given Hux had dreamed last night of the blood and gore that had been splattered all along them. The scent of it, too had been as horrific as it had been welcome; burnt ozone and bright copper, bitter upon his tongue. The screams and the moans had followed the vision, as had the wellspring of satisfaction at a job well done. That last bit might have been more his own thought than Kylo’s, really. But then that lack of distinction was perhaps not so strange, these days.

A chin fits itself upon his shoulder, hot breath upon his cheek. There are but two inches between them, and yet Kylo Ren can wrap about him like a late-afternoon shadow, long and distorted, familiar and alien both.

“You should be out there.”

The low rumble of his voice moves through him like the sound of distant brontide. Hux shivers, and says nothing. There follows a press of lips to his pulse, and he knows Kylo feels it speed beneath his touch.

“Call it back.” Another kiss, this one trailing and wet, along his jaw. “Take my Upsilon. Take _me_. Let us go back to the _Finalizer_ , you and I. Tonight.” One hand moves low, strokes gentle at one hip through the thick fabric of his uniform. “We can push the engines to full power and leave Coruscant far behind.” Now his hand is at his groin, a light and teasing pass. “We can fuck all night, and forget everything else.”

Hux slaps it away, but does not break free of his grasp. “Some of us have work to do, Ren.”

“Some of us have already done ours.” His tongue is clever, tonight; it flicks over the corner of Hux’s lips, his own curved in devious smile. “Don’t I deserve a reward?”

Another shiver moves through him, and it is not just from the chill of the night air. Hux is still staring at the sky. On his first night in the palace, he had memorised the constellations as seen from the capital. They were not familiar then, and they are not familiar now. They never will be.

Ren still nuzzles his neck; Hux can but be glad for his favoured high collars. “Please,” he says, and Hux closes his eyes.

The first time Hux had met Kylo Ren, upon the bridge of the _Finalizer_ , he had never thought he’d hear such a word from his lips. That day he had not even been able to _see_ his lips. Kylo Ren, dressed from head to toe in varying shades of black, not one inch of skin revealed, had been an unwelcome interloper upon his calm and ordered world. But as an envoy from Snoke himself, they’d both had no choice in it. How he’d hated him then.

A ghost of that old resentment is building now, familiar and aching. Ren is returned early from his mission. Hux does not doubt that it was completed to even his exacting standards, although the methods likely left much to be desired. But he had not thought to see Ren again for at least another day-cycle. It throws him off, to have him back now.

_Come with me. Back to your ship. Back to the stars._

Except the _Finalizer_ isn’t his anymore, not really. And all the stars in the universe might be under the command of Emperor Brendol Hux II, but he still must stand at their centre to make them dance. He cannot just cavort amongst them at will, like some fool smuggler about his illegal activities.

“Go inside,” he says, short and sudden, a general about his duties. “I will be with you presently.”

Kylo withdraws, silent. From a pocket, Hux removes a silver cigarillo case. Though he rarely indulges these days, he retrieves and lights one now in a single easy movement. Breathing deep, he closes his eyes, leans forward over the balustrade, and lets the ashes fall from his fingers. He takes his time before stubbing it out in an immaculate shell perched upon the balustrade, and only then goes inside.

Ren is already naked, spread out upon his bed like an open book. But then, of course Hux had felt his thoughts, muddled and muddied, out on the balcony. The lean body, dotted with moles like broken constellations, is sheened with sweat. Long fingered hands move in the task of his pleasure, one about his cock, one with the fingers between his teeth.

At least he has been quiet. But that hardly matters, to him. Hux can hear him in his head: a low chanting whisper, like a prayer. His name features prominently within, utterly without irony. And his eyes are fixed and staring, a demand which cannot be ignored.

Hux moves past him to the opulent refresher. There he removes his uniform; it is still similar to what it had been when he’d been but mere general, with a few extra embellishments. Only once it is tucked neatly away in the laundry chute does he step under the spray of the shower and close his eyes.

He has not quite opened himself to it, but still Hux can feel Kylo’s arousal, shifting under his skin, demanding attention and favour. The fingers are still around his cock, callused and knowing, squeezing and sliding. The rich scent of his favoured oil is strong, something so floral that it ought to be ridiculous. If Hux tries, he might be able to see why Ren would bother with it; it lurks beneath the surface thoughts, always. There is a reason. It means something.

Hux never looks.

Stepping from the shower, he towels his hair dry, then his body. Only then does he pad back into the bedroom, barefoot and still naked, the night air from the open balcony a welcome chill upon flushed skin.

Kylo has moved. He’s turned over, shoulders pushed down into the bed, hips arched upward, three fingers buried deep in his ass. Rocking on the balls of his feet, now, his back arches high with the pain of chased pleasure. Hux stands, watches, says not a word. Ren hears him all the same; the dark head turns, eyes hooded and glazed, hair sweat-tangled and stuck to his skin.

“Your majesty.”

Hux’s stomach coils in upon itself, dick twitching, mouth gone very dry. He cannot deny him. Moving forward, climbing upon the ridiculous opulence of the bed, he gentles him over and onto his back. He should be making it hard, should be making it harsh. Kylo Ren has completed his mission, but he has still disobeyed his orders. He is still trying to encourage him to abandon his own duties; his fool head is full of stars, and Hux would be nowhere else.

A well-oiled hand moves to slick his cock. Hux slaps it away, irritated. But it’s convenient, giving him the ease to just line up and slide in. Kylo’s back arches, arms thrust out and hands fisting in the fine sheets, throat bared. Instead of moving, Hux holds him there. Convulsive swallows work down the long shaft of his neck. And then Ren looks up, eyes damp and wide and so very dark.

“Please,” he says. “ _Please_.”

Yes. It should be hard, and it should _hurt_. But Hux only rocks, gentle and slow. Then he leans forward. Before he can thrust, long legs rise, wrapping about his waist; the well-muscled arms brace either side of his spine, fingers dug into his shoulders. Hux will be an astronavigator’s map of fresh bruises in the morning, but in reverse relief; purple-black against a lightly freckled canvas of translucent white.

Ren holds him too tight. Hux cannot thrust with any real strength. All he might do is loosely move his hips, the tip of his aching cock brushing over that one place where Ren feels it most. Even without that, it would have been enough. Ren seems to draw on his very nearness, his simple presence. Through their bond Hux knows intimately his rising pleasure. The pressure against his cock, pressed between their bellies, is but secondary to the knowledge he holds Hux deep within his body, and inside his mind. As Ren tightens around him, rhythmic and knowing, Hux sighs, gives over. Ren follows a moment later, whimpering, nails anchored deep enough to draw blood.

Ren never wants to let go, when it is over. Hux must encourage him back in order to escape, to return to the ‘fresher to wash himself clean again. But Ren is always only a step behind. There’s little point in sending him away; he had not realised his tiredness until he sags against the marble walls. And there’s pleasure in it, too: allowing Ren to wash him, as if Hux is a god and Ren but his acolyte. Given Ren’s power, it is odd. It should be the other way around.

_No. It should not_.

Too tired to argue, even in his mind, Hux protests not. He does not even clearly remember returning to his bed, and _that_ should be a concern. Ren is his knight now, even though that is too much trust entirely. But when he awakens in the morning, catches sight of Ren fully-clothed and meditating upon his balcony, Hux knows it does not matter. Ren is in his head. They will never escape each other now.

Only when dressed does he step outside again. A fresh cup of caf is cradled between gloved hands, brought by a servant. Hux had not ordered any for Ren. He does not drink it. But he is always in an ascetic mood at this hour anyway. While he moves through his forms, centres himself, Hux watches the gardens, drinks, and waits.

“Shall I accompany you, today?” Ren is suddenly very close at his elbow, voice trembling through him; he shivers to remember how it feels, when he whispers against his skin, in the dark. “Or shall we fly now?”

Keeping his gaze forward, towards the city rising with the dawn, Hux does not smile. “We are not leaving Coruscant. Or at least, I am not. If it bothers you so much to be planetside, then leave.”

He knows Ren is staring. A hot wave of shame crashes over and him and he clenches his eyes shut, holds his calm. Anything otherwise is unbecoming of an emperor. And yet when he looks down, furious at himself, at Ren, he sees the cup has fallen. It lies smashed at his feet. He does not even remember doing it.

“That…is more me than you.”

Hux turns on him with rabid fury. “I don’t even know where you end and I begin!” he shouts, hands curled to fists. “It’s _my_ head and I don’t even know whether I myself am in it anymore!”

Ren has turned very quiet. And Hux only turns away.

“I will be fine, Lord Ren. I will see you this evening.”

A hand hovers over his shoulder, but does not quite dare touch. Hux can feel the concern radiating from him, the rich heat from the never-ending supernova that is Kylo Ren. How delighted he’d been, when Snoke had first put that power in his hands. How exhausted he is now, to understand it will burn and burn and burn and yet never go out.

The day passes. Trade agreements, treaties, plans for future weapon development, troop inspection, war strategy meetings. They are but a few of his favourite things. But when he looks up, he sees no stars in the sky. They exist only in his mind. The yearning is palpable, so very nearly perfect.

He misses Phasma – and other officers, known and trusted aboard the _Finalizer_ , in the base at Starkiller. All gone now, little but remnants of an old life, a previous existence. They still live, many of them. But Hux no longer numbers amongst them. Once, might have said it was simply the way of the universe, the rightful order of things. But he is here, in his palace, and he lingers long over the lost kingdom of his Star Destroyer.

_But there are more stars in all the universe than even I might be able to snuff out._

He takes the endless courses of the evening meal with various ambassadors, commanders, and outright sycophants of the old empire and the new. The balance of power in the universe has tilted dramatically as of late; the end of Starkiller should have bolstered the Resistance’s standing in the eyes of the New Republic, but the panic it sent through the systems had actually made the coup far easier than even Hux might have suspected. Things are more strongly delineated these days; the Second Galactic Empire stands against the blended forces of Republic and Resistance, and he its brightest figurehead. It is how he’d dreamed.

And then, it is not.

Towards the end of the meal, over brandy and thick cigarras, there is talk of marriages, of familial alliances and burgeoning dynasties. Hux nods politely, makes conversation, dodges any personal commitment. The ache lurking at the back of his mind is mild at first, grows worse as the evening wears on. Even with the distance between them Ren is listening to everything through his ears, and becoming more and more agitated with every careless word spoken. But even had Hux known how to shield his thoughts, even had he had the strength to resist someone of Ren’s exotic calibre, it would have made no difference. They share mindspace. He could no more reject Ren’s presence in his mind than his very own.

When he returns to the bedroom, Ren falls upon on him like a wild animal. Hux allows him to do as he will, biting and scratching and shoving his cock into him, over and over, until he calms. At the end he lies upon the stinging skin of his back, Ren’s head cradled upon his bleeding chest. Staring at the ceiling, fingers tangled in his hair, he wonders why this has not brought the satisfaction he had expected.

Hux has never been one for gentler bedsport. He’s simply never seen the attraction. But that was before he found that lingering kisses and touches and subtle placement of tongues and lips and fingers could leave someone with all the wild power of Kylo Ren trembling and wet-eyed on his back beneath him.

He shouldn’t have sighed aloud; Ren shifts at the sound, grips tighter across his chest. Even knowing their bond, Hux cannot mask the pang of disappointment; he had thought him asleep. But then it doesn’t matter because Kylo is looking up at him. Those eyes have always been able to fill the world. And now they are haunted, reflecting a thousand emotions that are too big for his underdeveloped sense of self to hold. He’s too pale, nearly as pale as Hux. And how Hux wishes he would not say a word.

But of course, he does. “You’re in pain.” It’s stuttering, very slow. Everything of it is at odds with what Ren has been led to understand is his destiny. It just makes Hux very tired. “I don’t know how to stop it,” he adds, wondering, one hand upon his chest, just over his heart. Perhaps he should shake it away, should push Ren aside. But Hux does not. He lies very still, stares at the ceiling, and remembers the _Finalizer_. He could always see the stars from any viewport, there. At any moment he wished.

“I have everything I want, Ren. It’s not an issue.”

“You never wanted me.”

In answer, he can only close his eyes. It had been very quiet, the day Snoke had summoned him from the bridge. In the weeks after Starkiller, Ren gone away to recuperate and complete his training. Hux had been left to pick up the pieces of the shattered base – and his ruined career – in a strange and unwelcome peace. The entire complement of staff had once been desperate for Ren to be assigned elsewhere. But after Starkiller, when all had their wish, no-one had known what to do with the circumstances it left them in.

And then Snoke had demanded Hux come to him.

Dressing himself to perfection, from cap to greatcoat to gloves to the pressed orderly creases of his uniform beneath, Hux had figured it for his execution. No-one could allow the loss of an asset like Starkiller and expect to retain his rank, let alone his life. But Hux kept both, and gained something more besides.

_I will make you Emperor_ , the creature had crooned, lipless lips still curved in impossible smile. _And he shall be your right hand. The power behind your throne. Use him well. It is why I made him_.

Hux is not, and never will be, Force sensitive. He had not even entirely believed in its existence before meeting Kylo Ren. Even watching the man choke his staff, at a distance, with nothing more than a clenching of fingers, had never made it seem quite real. But that day, true knowledge had him down on his knees, head clutched in his hands, voice choked by screams to silence. It had been so very different from all the times Snoke and Ren had fossicked idly in his thoughts. In that moment he was _in Kylo Ren’s head_ and he had never felt such pain.

He has never known it twice. There are _things_ in there, things not even Hux, with all his academy training and front line experience, can stomach. There were _children_. And Hux has killed children, yes. From a distance, and in incendiary single moments. Kylo Ren is something different. He had _done_ something different. Hux had shied away from the truth of that, then.

But Kylo Ren is in his mind.

They had fucked for the first time that night. Hux been determined not to think of it in terms of consummation. It had been hard not to when it became clear Kylo Ren was either a virgin, or near enough to it that the difference was merely academic.

It had not exactly been the best sex of his life. But then, it had been so strikingly different that it might as well have been. Kylo Ren, inside his mind, directing him even as he was directed in turn. When it had ended Hux had tried to leave. But with Kylo Ren wrapped about him he had been unable to rise even from the bed. Despite himself, he slept heavily in the man’s arms; when they woke in the morning, they did it all again. Except Ren had improved by leaps and bounds even in that short period, and it really _was_ the best sex of his life, that second time.

His childhood dream had always been to become emperor. And now, even though he is, Hux remains under Snoke’s thumb, is bound even to Snoke’s favourite pet. In the beginning he had thought there would be time and chance enough to break free from that yoke. Ren’s devotion had been an immediate answer; that first morning he’d lain there with Ren pressed against his side, fanciful in his imaginings: perhaps he could turn him away from Snoke. Ren is, after all, little more than a vast well of power, waiting to be dedicated to appropriate cause. It reminds him now of the way Starkiller had taken its power from the burning heart of a sun, had refined and redirected it, making it perfect and useful and true.

From the first moment they had been introduced, Hux had never feared Ren. He had seen no reason for it. For all his power, he is little more than a child spoiled to ruin, a weapon uncalibrated and incomplete.

But with that weapon now in his own hands, Hux at last knows true fear.

“Hux.”

He stirs, sighs, surrenders. “What?”

“Can…”

It leaves him so weary, thinking the thoughts of two very different people. “If you want to call me Brendol, call me Brendol.” He doesn’t remember saying the next words aloud, although then he didn’t even need to. “We are practically married, anyway.”

Ren turns very stiff in his arms. It leaves Hux too afraid to go near the sudden frantic buzz of his thoughts. But Ren will not let him ignore it. Ren will never let him ignore it.

“We could be.”

Hope has never been part of the currency dealt by the First Order. It is too ephemeral, too volatile, a chaotic system beyond logical configuration. “Ren,” he says, and his chest aches; he does not know who this hurts more. “I am emperor. You are my enforcer.”

“But you are not happy.” Ren has sat up, is staring down at him with a kind of startled devotion that ends worlds. “Like this.”

“It is not about being happy,” he begins, but Ren silences him with the sweep of one hand. He hadn’t even used his powers.

“I _need_ you to be happy.”

It is to do with that power in him, Hux knows. Ren needs a focus, a stabilising influence, much in the way Force sensitives work kyber crystals into their saber hilts to focus and concentrate the blade. It is the only reason Snoke had bound them together – that, and the fact that having them this way invokes the memory of Tarkin and Vader, who had done much for order in the galaxy before the Death Star. And at the very least, their Starkiller is already behind them.

“Ren.” It makes no sense. He should not care. And yet he stares up at this man before him, somehow more a child than a man, and wants only to see him calm. “Kylo.”

He has only turned his head, and yet with the distant gaze in his eyes he feels very far away. “You want to be Emperor in your own right.” The smile on his face is strange, unpractised, as if he had forgotten how. “I could make that happen.”

Hux goes very cold, and still. And yet somewhere, deep in his mind, a voice begins to carol with something dangerously close to joy. “You should not say such things – aloud, or otherwise. Snoke would kill us both.”

Ren’s eyes have closed now, his expression carven of granite. And yet he thrums with withheld power, some cursed artefact unearthed from the ruined temples of both Sith and Jedi. “He might _try_.”

The words taste of bitter ash upon his tongue. “And he likely would.” The knight does not move and, curled still in their bed, Hux takes a deep breath, yearns for a cigarra. His head hurts dreadfully. Even when they are not actively in one another’s heads, he always feels him there. And the fury roiling beneath the surface is a river of molten magma, threatening to drown him even as it boils Kylo Ren alive.

“Ren,” he begins, and then he stops. Unable to be close, in this, he rises from the bed. He does not go far; at the balcony, the stars are too bright, too close. He feels he might be able to reach out, to pull them all down and press them against his eyes until they burn everything clean.

He turns away. There is a chair, near the bed; he sits carefully there, tries to ignore the high back and the winged headrest. This is not his throne. And yet when Ren rises, comes to stand before him, it might as well be.

_You are mine_.

Hus shakes his head. “Ren,” he tries, again, “Ren, you have great power in you. More than I know, more than I could ever understand – and that is even given I am in your head.” One hand ceases rubbing at an aching temple, falls upon the arm of the chair. “But you are broken. And he keeps you that way for a reason.”

“You could fix me.”

The horror of the thought knocks all the breath from his lungs, leaves him as dead and cold as the ruins of shattered Starkiller. “ _Ren_.”

“I know you could.” And there it is, again: hope. Bright and beautiful and crushing and cruel. “I have spent my whole life being pulled to the Dark. But even when I try to give myself to it utterly, I am still hollow. I am still being torn apart.” It’s almost shy when he whispers, “I only feel whole when I am with you.”

“He knows you feel this way.”

“He believes you won’t do it.” As flat as his voice has turned now, Hux can feel the agony beneath it, twisting and turning and choking them both with bitter strength. “You love order. You love perfection. You want everything neat and functional and useful.” And he raises an eyebrow as if it doesn’t matter, though Hux can feel the small death creeping through him with every spoken word. “Snoke thinks that you believe I can never be any of these things.”

_Because you can’t be_.

The thought had escaped, unasked, only half meant. It doesn’t matter; Ren rears back as if slapped. Immediately Hux reaches forward, grasps a handful of robe, watches it fall from his grasp as Ren continues to back away, face very pale.

“Ren.” It comes out hollow, cracked, bleeding. “Ren, I didn’t mean that.”

“You did.” His voice rises to a shout, the entire room trembling with the force of his sudden fury. “I _felt_ it!”

With his head in his hands he can feel it in nauseating entirety: his life, spiralling out of control, like a planet knocked from its orbit. And the sun at the centre of everything, it is so very close to supernova. “Ren,” he says as he looks up, and hates the desperation in his voice, hates the _failure_ of every word he says. “Ren, this is beyond me, can’t you see that? All of this…this… _Force_. I don’t understand it. I don’t know what it is. And now it’s _in_ me, and I still don’t…I just can’t…”

These are confessions he has never spoken aloud. He has barely even permitted himself to put them to coherent thought. From the moment memory begins, Brendol Hux II has always known _how_. Between a rigidly militaristic father and the gauntlet of an academy that that same man had crafted from the blood, sweat, and tears of thousands of children, Hux has never been allowed to not know _how_. But in this, he knows almost nothing. This is a test that he can only fail.

“This is not how I pictured this would be,” he says, too quick; at first he thinks he’s laughing, but his eyes sting and his hands only stop trembling when he balls them to fists. “When I was a child, I mean. Staring up at the stars, thinking of how I would one day rule them.”

The air has lost its sharp charge, and the floor no longer feels fit to burst beneath his feet. But Ren still stands there like a marionette upon cut strings, hung upon the very air. When he speaks, it is low, empty, utterly without hope. “I’m not what you wanted.”

Upon a long sigh, Hux closes his eyes. Almost immediately he opens them again. Running away is never a solution to any issue he’s known. “Is this what _you_ wanted?”

For a long moment Ren only watches him. Those dark eyes have always been one of his more peculiar features: so dark as to be nearly black, and almost as reflective as the damned helmet he rarely wears now. It seems he had finally realised his eyes were worse than any overwrought mask he might wear over them. “No,” Ren says, finally, lips downturned. “But that doesn’t matter now. You are all I want.”

Every muscle aches, as if he has spent the last day running endless drills from one end of the palace to the other. Pushing himself from the chair, he barely smothers a groan, focuses instead upon his goal. And when he stands before Kylo Ren, he raises one hand, lays it gentle upon his scarred cheek.

“You deserve better than me,” he says, very soft, words he had never thought he would speak aloud. And he can feel it, in Ren’s mind: the faint thought of the girl, of his uncle, his mother; those people who truly _know_ what is within him, whether light or dark or both.

_They don’t understand. What they wish of me, I could achieve only through death._

“I have made my choices,” Ren says, clear and without regret. _And I am alive,_ his mind-voice echoes, one hand rising to press over Hux’s own. “I would tear the universe in two, for you. If that is what you wanted.”

_And you have power enough to do it_. The words emerge, clear and careful, even as his mind screams at him, calling him a fool. “You really think we could overthrow Snoke.”

The smile Ren wears now is a promise of death. But the warmth of his eyes is that of a man in love, of a child given everything it might need just to feel safe in the night. “I _know_ we could,” he says, very fierce; both his hands now press either side of Hux’s still features. “You.” And he presses their foreheads together, as if they couldn’t just read one another’s minds even when galaxies apart. “And _me_.”

Hux kisses him. They both know it will end in bed. Already he can feel the dampness against his collar as Ren mouths downward, sucks at the delicate skin over his jugular vein. The power in him is something twisted and broken and chaotic. But Hux could lay him down, and then lay hands upon him. Only he might smooth away the creases, stitch together the wounds, pour himself into the holes, and make of him everything he has ever wanted.

“I love you.”

Without a word, Hux takes him by the hand, and guides him to their bed. There he puts him on his back, rises above him. Beneath him Ren’s eyes are very clear, very open, and absolutely and utterly fixed upon Hux alone.

_I don’t hate you._

It shouldn’t be enough. But somehow it is. Hux allows Ren to pull him down upon him, to press them so close together that he forgets they were once two people. And though they’re still far from the sky, all Hux can see is stars.


End file.
